Hey NICE!!!!! I was going to do this the next time I had a Radio to do! You beat me to it...

The Radios I've done haven't had the board you had to remove to access the Red and White Faceplate Connectors, with the antenna connection on it? I wonder how many variants there are?

The eight small screws holding the Display board down are 1/8", I bought a nice kit at Lowes with quick change long reach nut drivers that range from 5/64" to 1/4"...

PMing ya on some ideas...

Tim

 

Replacing your stock radio bulbs with LED's has been covered earlier in the main thread (thanks to Tim Tstar and others), so I won't rehash any of that, but I did come up with something that might help to disperse the light once you've got them installed.

Here's a shot of my radio board with LED's installed. You may notice on the left side by the volume ****, I put two LED's where there had only been one stock bulb. Makes a world of difference.



The bulbs sit in the holes you see in this white plastic piece that's attached to the backside of the faceplate. It snaps in place with one tab on each side. The blue plastic piece is the wave guide for the cd slot (it re-directs some of the light up to that area). DON'T FORGET TO REPLACE THAT PIECE WHEN YOU PUT THINGS BACK TOGETHER! Yeah, I forgot.



One thing you can do to maximize your LED's light is to find some shiny foil and line the white plastic piece. I set it on top of the circuit board to show how it is when the radio is put back together. The three LED's on the bottom right sit inside a wave guide, so I didn't line that area.



This is the wave guide for those other light positions. Normally, it's clear, but I wrapped it with reflective foil.



Here's a pic of the blue film piece that sits directly behind all of your radio buttons. There's this big main piece and a small piece. Notice that between the blue windows, there's a round black area. These are DIRECTLY in front of the bulbs. Not good for LED's.




I decided to get rid of that blue film (even though I used blue LED's) so I'd get good even lighting. I found an old file folder with a clear plastic cover, traced the blue film piece on it, then carefully cut it out and fitted it.




Between foil-lining the white plastic piece, foil-wrapping the wave guide, and replacing the blue film with clear, I've managed to get a pretty even distribution of light.

They don't do it justice, but here are some finished pics...






Hope this is helpful to someone!

 

Check your PM's.
Rick

 

Hey, you showed how to do the hard one!!!!!! So yeah it's VERY helpful!! I wouldn't have shown one without that other board and people would be saying WTF or whatever it is they say...

Yeah I used a small crescent wrench on em also till I got that kit. What a PITA! The kit is made by Kobalt and has a nice carrying case with it, it was on an end cap...

Your Radio and HVAC look excellent!

Tim

 

Nice work

 

Tim (tstar) has requested photos of my install using white LED's.









All of the dash and door control LED's were custom made. When I did most of this work the Type 74 LED lapms were not available.




These are closeup shots of the lights installed in the footwells and trunk.
These are 1W LED modules.

Drivers footwell.


Turnk


If you have any questions don't hesitate to contact me.

Gary

 

Very nice!!!!!!! Crisp, clean and matches the IPC!!!!

Tim

 

along with a few other members recently I decided to add some puddle lights to the bottom of my doors. I went with cool white water proof flexible LED strips from Oznium. Its the waterproof version of what I used for my floor lights featured earlier. unlike the autozone solutions I got almost 2 feet of LEDs under each door. I think it turned out great! except for taking some pictures in my garage after install I've hardly seen them so far, haven't driven at night yet!
with the LED's hidden in between the two weather strips they are protected from damage and exessive water. the rubber gaskets also seal the light in completely when ever the doors are closed. living in VA you always have to be careful about things like that. if I Were to turn the dimmer up all the way to turn on the interior lights and floor lights while driving no need to worry about the light being visible from the outside. becaues it would probably result in a ticket...whether its legal or not.

here are some pics, looks awesome!

here is where the wires go inside. I used 18awg speaker wire because it was convenient to have the two conductors attached. I would have used smaller wire if I had it, 22awg would be plenty.


a close up of the light strips before being hooked up. they aren't very pretty to look at while off, so I only use this style in hidden locations.


the strip illuminated


and a few pictures of the final product

 

Looks good!

 

It looks DAMN good!!!!!!! I'm going to have to do this now! Hey if you tied em into your footwell light then they shouldn't be on when you're driving... Well, with the door closed anyway.

BTW Now you need a set of medal pedals! All that light is just making that plastic gas pedal jump ouy at ya!

Tim

 

Ok, can someone help me out here, i'm trying to do everything in red, aside from the hood. I've narrowed down which my car will be using above and edited. Can someone tell me the exaxt number of which led's I need?

Are these what i'll be needing if I wanted to get everything from Autoillumination?
14 - 5mm LEDs with XXX* Ohm resistors for HVAC
12 - 5mm LEDs for mirror
13 - NEO WEDGE Type B bulbs, 10mm (3/8”) diameter $2.99 ea. for doors, fog, trunk, dic, etc.
4 - NEO WEDGE Type A, 8mm (5/16") diameter $2.99 ea. for Dimmer/HUD
1 – Super Star Festoon Dome Bulb: White. 10mm wide x 44mm overall $9.99 ea.

Now, from what i'm gathering, am I correct in assuming that the Autoilluminaton bulbs are NOT sanded and do not have the plastic base? And, that I should probably use the ones from Oznium? The areas that could use the sanded Oznium ones are doors, dic, fog, trunk, dimmer, hud? Oznium also does not differentiate between 8mm or 10mm.


I'm confused on what the macmaster covers in red are for. What blue bulbs will I have that need these?



The hvac and map lights are my big concern. I don't think I want to attempt this. My hvac display is out as well as some other areas. I didn't see anything on replacing the display led.

I know of a repair service on the auction site that will repair the hvac for $100 w/100 deposit once my core is returned and i'm thinking of going that route first if the display area is unreplaceable.

 

I just ordered 40 of the Oznium LEDs. That should be a good start for me. They are ready to go, plug and play, and you don't have to worry about anything except putting them in the right way.

 

Ok, can someone help me out here, i'm trying to do everything in red, aside from the hood. I've narrowed down which my car will be using above and edited. Can someone tell me the exaxt number of which led's I need?

Are these what i'll be needing if I wanted to get everything from Autoillumination?
14 - 5mm LEDs with XXX* Ohm resistors for HVAC
12 - 5mm LEDs for mirror
13 - NEO WEDGE Type B bulbs, 10mm (3/8”) diameter $2.99 ea. for doors, fog, trunk, dic, etc.
4 - NEO WEDGE Type A, 8mm (5/16") diameter $2.99 ea. for Dimmer/HUD
1 – Super Star Festoon Dome Bulb: White. 10mm wide x 44mm overall $9.99 ea.
I'd suggest buying a few extra of the bare LED's and the NEO WEDGES.


Now, from what i'm gathering, am I correct in assuming that the Autoilluminaton bulbs are NOT sanded and do not have the plastic base? Autolumination NEO WEDGE bulbs have the plastic bases. I only needed one "type A" 8mm and that's all I ordered from them, but I believe it was a round-top, not flat-top. Don't know if the 10mm ones are round or flat, but the pic on their website shows flat.And, that I should probably use the ones from Oznium? That's up to you. I ordered my NEO WEDGES from Oznium because they were cheaper. The areas that could use the sanded Oznium ones are doors, dic, fog, trunk, dimmer, hud? Yes.Oznium also does not differentiate between 8mm or 10mm. They don't sell the 8mm ones (that I've found).

The hvac and map lights are my big concern. I don't think I want to attempt this. My hvac display is out as well as some other areas. I didn't see anything on replacing the display led. [QUOTE] Neither have I. Only a fix for a dim display.

Tstar can correct me if I'm wrong. He also does HVAC/Radio LED conversions and may be able to help you out. I'm sure he'll reply to this soon...he's on here ALL the time.

 

My HUD/Dimmer switch pack used 4 of the smaller Type A NEOs, some other owners said that they had a mix of type A and B, so to be safe as RJ said, get some extras... You would really be upset after tearing apart your IPC to discover you're short a few NEOs!

The problem areas are pretty well covered in the first pages....

The rest looks good to me!

PM me about your HVAC and Maplight PCBs...

And RJ is the one who is on here ALL the time.... not me!!!!! Who answered first?

Tim

 

Touche'!

 

Does anyone have some more info on how to swaps LEDs in the electro rearview mirror? Do we need to solder new LEDs to the circuit board?

 

Yep, sure do. Here are some great instructions from Carlton;

http://www.spdkilz.com/techtipledrearviewmirror.html

If you're doing Red, they will all light up fine. Blue and White, you'll have to isolate one of the outer LEDs (the forst one would be easiest) and tie into the Hot wire with a resistor, then run a jumper to the next LED in line from the hot lead as well... That should get em all lit up.

Tim

 

I had an idea and brought out the soldering iron. I decided to make some use of a few extra LED strips I had laying around from my floor lights mod.

I already added extra light to my hatch by retrofitting the stock lights to accommodate festoon bulbs, and installing blue festoon LEDs with 2 superflux LEDs each. I bought a set of extra lenses and then added 2 more housings modified the same way right above the rear wheel humps.

recently I've decided that even though blue LEDs look so good, they are best left for things like the window controls. I decided I wanted all my interior illumination lights to be white. they kind of look bluish anyway, and make more light and a nicer light than the blue. so I took 2 strips of extra Oznium LEDs and wired them into the housings. instead of 2 superflux LEDs I ended up with 12 LEDs in each housing. I know they produce a bright even pattern light, because these are the same ones I used on my floor lights and puddle lights.

check it out!


I soldered the leads right onto the orignal bulb contacts, this way I can use the factory plug which makes it convenient to remove & replace

this shows a comparison of the two. and I thought the blue superflux festoon mod made it bright!

here's the final product mounted

unfortunately I only had enough LEDs to do 3 of them, so I did my original 2 housings and left the 2 I added for later. I guess I'll have to make another order from oznium!

what do you think?

 

These all look GREAT!

 

I'm going to start calling you McGuiver instead of Mcgilles!!!!!

I think it looks fatastic!!! AND all from left overs too! Gotta love that!

Tim